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Wow, it’s been a long time, I’m sorry. I’m still around, doing my thing, just been seriously procrastinating updating this blog. Since late April – really, since my last update – I’ve maintained my weight, hovering between 138 and 140lbs. Which isn’t too bad considering for the last 6 weeks I’ve almost completely thrown my program out of the window and just been winging it. Still, I’m pretty annoyed as, by this point, I should have been well beyond my long-term goal and down at least 8-10lbs. Eeesh.

Why? I have a ton of excuses. While I started out the 8×3 challenge strong, I’ve fallen far short of achieving it, making it half-way and stopping. Here’s my list of excuses. While I hate making excuses, most of them are pretty valid if weak, and I’m working on overcoming them so I can get back to working out and losing weight to reach my goal.

Dog attacked me. In the third week or so of April, a neighborhood dog that I’m very familiar with bit me on both of my legs. It wasn’t a really serious injury requiring stitches or anything, but it sure as hell put a dampener on my enthusiasm in walking around the neighborhood. This dog has always been noisy around me, but I never thought it would bite me. This is a dog I’ve seen for months, not a new one that doesn’t know me. The bites were a surprise and painful, and I dislike the thought of going by again to risk another attack. Now, more than a month later and I’m still bearing the marks, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be wearing these scars for life.

I started working. I finally picked up a part-time job working retail. Unfortunately (or what have you), the hours I work are the extreme ones, from 6am to noon or 4pm to 9:30pm at night. While I love those hours – they leave me the afternoons to get my business done, they completely kill the cooler hours to go out running; with temperatures getting up into the 90s with the typical humidity we see, this is killer.

I have to get up at 5am or so to make my morning shift, and I get home at 10pm (and some of my night shifts are followed by morning shifts, so I only get 6-7 hours sleep in between). It’s put a wrench in my habits, particularly the evening hours as I no longer have a full, decent dinner at the hour I’m used to. While we need the money, this is my biggest problem, I feel, in maintaining a routine. Then there’s just the fact that I’m physically and emotionally tired that makes me just exhausted every day I get home from work. I don’t work as much as many other people do, but I am taking multivitamins and iron tablets for a reason.

Tablets – I’m on the Pill. I’ve always talked about the hormonal swings I suffer from, as well as the general discomfort and irritation I feel when that time of month comes around. I’m just now finishing up my first month of being back on the Pill. While it has helped in maintaining my cycle – I no longer suffer from mood swings, exhaustion and irritability – it has had some side effects. One being that my breasts are hurting like hell. They’re painful to the touch, and changing my clothes, turning over in bed or even just brushing against them is agony. The thought of actually going outside and running around with them like this makes me want to cry. Two, the pill is notorious for making women gain weight. Blugh. I’ve been on the pill before and lost weight, but I was working 10-12 hours straight, eating little and sleeping in all of my free hours. I’m taking a generic of the pill I was using at that time, and while I haven’t gained a ton of weight that I can contribute to the pill, it makes me a little leery. I don’t know if I want to stop taking it, as the alternative is just as awful, so I’m going to keep going. At this point, I’d rather keep taking the pill than stop.

Mo money, mospending. A side effect of the job is that because I’m now working and no longer at home all the time to keep the place clean, work out and keep up with the diet and meal prep, we’re spending on eating out a little more than we should. We’re not eating junk food non-stop, but again, we’re certainly not eating the type of food we’d been devouring since we started WW and working out. Then –

The diet has changed. As a result, I’ve been lazier in keeping my food journal up to date. In the mess of redoing our living room, I’ve misplaced the diary and now I keep a running total of my eating habits in my head. Again, not good. I need to dig it up and start tracking properly again. Still, we are still purchasing and eating the same foods we were doing before. It’s just that when I’m working nights or too tired, I don’t cook. Boo doesn’t seem so interested in cooking so we end up eating sandwiches or something fast and easy. Those aren’t unhealthy either, but they’re not quite the same as a homecooked dinner.

Activity has dropped off.This is something I’ve been struggling with long before the dog bite and job, but now it’s all but gone with the work schedule and weather change. I’ve not gone walking in weeks, nor did any running or working out. The weather is absolutely vile – the kind where you just stand outside and you’re saturated in sweat within 5 minutes. You don’t have to do any physical exercise. The only hours that are cool enough to go out and run around are the ones that are within my work hours.

I’m wearing toning shoes and I’m always on my feet at work, and I walk the floor all the time, so I am still walking a good distance, but I’m certainly not maintaining the same level of exercise as I did before. This is only just the end of spring; summer is going to get worse.

I might have to face the prospect of getting a treadmill or some sort of machine to work on indoors because I’m feeling (irritated mostly) antsy that I can’t get out and move how I used to.

So the last two months have been a spectacular failure. While I’ve maintained some small degree of the old program – walking around at work, points counting in my head – I’ve not maintained as much as I’d like. I hope to eventually move on and find a job with more stable hours, but in the meantime, I’m working on settling into this new, shifting routine and getting back into the old habits. At least start counting points again

It’s now June; I haven’t made the 8×3 challenge like I was confident I would, and that pisses me off something royally. Still, it’s a fresh new month so I need to swing myself back up onto that saddle and start again. Oog. I can do it. I just don’t want to, right now… 😉

FEATURED

A girlfriend of mine and I have set ourselves the challenge of losing 8kg (17.6lbs) over the next 3 months together. So from March 4 to June 4, we’re working on reaching our new goal weights. Above is my progress tracker, to be updated regularly. Cross your fingers that Mia and I can reach this goal before time is up!

Last updated: April 18

Been playing with the WP themes and changed to a cleaner one. Hope it's not too muddled or complicated.

Welcome

Welcome to Blue Runners, my personal corner of the web that acts as an online journal to document my progress in my quest to lose weight and gain fitness.

Here you'll find posts about my progress, my thoughts, my diet and exercise routine, as well as other related topics. I hope that not only will this journal help me to stay on track and reach my goals, but perhaps, in some small way, help to inspire and support others to do the same.